If you have been on Facebook or Twitter anytime in the last week, than you have probably been exposed to one nasty nipple. A viral video has been making the rounds, warning viewers of horrific breast rash that is results of certain shampoos, including popular name brand Head & Shoulders. It appears that the shampoos are infested with larvae. Well, we should say, that is how it seems on Facebook to users who don’t know how to use Snopes. The hoax-busting website has weighed in on whether the image is real or fake.
Social media is a great place to go if you want to catch up with former high school friends, find out who your ex is dating or stalk a potential mate, but is no place for the truth. One of the latest lies making the rounds is a viral video claiming that Head & Shoulders shampoo has caused a horrific breast rash in some users. The video (in most cases) requires you to share it on your Facebook wall before you can view it. Here is a little hint, you probably should not be promoting anything you haven’t already seen. Wanna do the world one, a little research on your links wouldn’t hurt either.
Hoax-buster extraordinaire Snopes.com has a page devoted to the Breast Rash scam. The website explains the scam, writing:
“This item is another example of a common Internet phenomenon: Someone makes an image available on-line, the picture begins to circulate through e-mail forwards, the original attribution or explanation for the image gets lost along the way (or was never provided), people begin to make up stories to explain the origin of the now-sourceless picture, and those fabricated explanations become attached to the image as it continues to circulate ... In this case it isn't just the explanation that's fabricated; the image is a phony one created through digital manipulation as well.
“This image appeared on the Internet back in June 2003 (on a website with a collection of other manipulated photographs); at that time it carried no explanation at all and was soon attributed by others to some new type of ‘body modification.’ Not until a couple of months later did it pick up the story about an anthropologist named 'Susan McKinley' who returned from a South American expedition to notice a ‘very strange rash’ on her breast caused by ‘larvae’ which were ‘feeding off the fat, tissue, and even milk canals of her bosom.’ No known medical condition causes a result like the one depicted here, and the breast tissue around the supposed ‘larvae infestation’ (larvae of what?) is too healthy (no redness, inflammation, or necrosis) to be believable. This image appears to be the product of the melding of a photograph of a woman's breast and a picture of something similar to a lotus seed pod:”
